My stories with FIFA World Cup

作者：南方姑娘在北欧

When it comes to sports, I have always been fond of ball sports, such as basketball, football, volleyball, table tennis, tennis, paddle, squash, etc. And now one of the famous ball sports matches - the 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022. No wonder FIFA World Cup becomes a heated topic among all media.

We often heard or used the word World Cup instead of FIFA World Cup to refer to this famous football match. But have you ever wondered what FIFA means? It means the International Federation of Association Football, the sport's global governing body. Until today, the championship has been awarded every four years since the tournament in 1930, with only two cancelations in 1942 and 1946 because of the Second World War.

My first memory of the FIFA World Cup dated far back to when I was a few years old because it’s easy to be seen on TV and heard by the people around. But my first memory of watching the World Cup for real was when I was in the 4th grade in primary school. It was hosted in France.

My uncle was a big football lover, so there’s no doubt that the World Cup becomes his favorite show in terms of sports games. I was influenced by him, and it was he who taught me all the rules about playing football. Then we stayed up, watched, and discussed the game together. Now when I think of it, was he really enjoying teaching me or maybe he needed someone to discuss with, so he invested his time teaching me all the rules. Joking, I am sure he was kind and meant to teach me for my own good. Unfortunately, as a student, we can’t commit too much time to watch this game. Especially during high school, due to the heavy study load and also boarding school kind of banned us from watching this game or any other games. So I didn’t become a big fan in the end.

My most fresh memory about the FIFA World Cup was in 2018 when I had been relocated to Sweden already. I was amazed by how much the Swedes love this sport. Basically, when there’s a game, even though it’s during working hours, people will just watch the game, and I am not talking about watching it secretly during working hours. Instead, my colleagues were playing the game on the big screen in our open meeting area where we usually hold our town hall meetings in the company. They would wear the T-shirts to support the teams they love and shout when they scored. I am not saying HR has written on paper it’s ok to watch football games during working hours, but obviously, colleagues from HR were in the watching-World-UP-together crowd as well. Such a dream job and dream workplace right?

I think this phenomenon is really unique in the workplace, which I am pretty proud of and support to be honest. I guess this can happen due to many reasons, but there’re two reasons I can name of. The first one is because Swedes themselves love sports a lot, and when it comes to football, it’s one of the sports they are good at and famous for internationally. A lot of colleagues have their kids join the football club from primary school. And almost every neighborhood has its own football field. The second reason I can think of is because of the work flexibility in general in Sweden. There’s no such thing as punching in and out at work like what we do in most of the companies in other countries. In Sweden, majority of the companies apply a flexible working hour policy, meaning you can decide your work time as long as you deliver your job on time. So watching FIFA World Cup during working hours wouldn’t become a problem. 

Long story short, these are memories I have regarding the FIFA World Cup. Thanks for listening.

感谢你的陪伴, 欢迎订阅分享留言哦～

Stay charming, see you in the next episode.